Now that the "official" stuff is out of the way, here are some things to consider:
Maps during similar periods of Earth history have been laughably inaccurate, so we assume that Faerunian cartographers are offering "best estimate" distances. This is supported by real-world evidence. As this enterprising gamer has noted in detail, changes to maps distances have been substantial. Between the old Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas and the official 5E map, distances are often off by up to 20 miles; it even puts BG as around 17 miles north of the Chionthar!
It goes without saying, but take these map as aids, not as a hard and fast requirement for your own campaign.
So... fudge the distances if you need to; these maps are off by nearly 20 miles in some places! Elturel is 15 miles further east on this old map versus the newer map, for example, and there's a similar distance discrepancy between Trollclaw and Baldur's Gate. So... there's wiggle room, even if you're trying to be 'official.'
For me, I prefer to place Moonrise 15-17 miles west of the Grove. Having it a mere 7 miles away seems a bit too close.
The Grove being 21 miles east of Elturel DOES make sense and is consistent with my original estimates (the 200 miles here is very close to the 200 "by river" I measured before) ; that's between a day and a day and a half of travel on trails through mountainous terrain.
TL;DR:
Elturel = 215 miles east of Baldur's Gate
The Grove = 200 Miles East of Baldur's Gate
Moonrise / Reithwin = 193 Miles East of Baldur's Gate
As noted in my last post, my partner and I have been trying to pinpoint the locations in Baldur's Gate 3 on the Sword Coast map.
Larian, in their Gameplay Demo, revealed two vital bits of information. First, that the nautiloid crash site was on the Chionthar and second, that it was approximately 200 miles east of Baldur's Gate. The Blighted Village, Goblin Camp, and everything else should be relatively close (within 5-10 miles) of The Grove. In-game text suggests that The Blighted Village, Moonhaven, is on the border of the lands controlled by Elturel, but where that border is or what it means is squishy.
Moonrise was more difficult. The only out-of-game reference to Moonrise was in an old adventure, and the only map we could find with Moonrise definitively mapped was in the old Forgotten Realms Interactive Access mapping tool. We got our hands on a copy and proceeded to measure distances. The results are available above.
Caveat: The maps of the Sword Coast have changed over time. Sometimes, TSR / Wizards changes distances dramatically, so this estimate is only that. Take this with a grain of salt / as a fun project we undertook to better understand how in-game locations meshed with Sword Coast locations.
Nice, thx :)
Welcome!
Maps during similar periods of Earth history have been laughably inaccurate, so we assume that Faerunian cartographers are offering "best estimate" distances.
Hard disagree on this as a gauge, they have access to magic that can answer universal truths. If a cartographer or merchant of that time period had the access to those answers they'd've been uses then too. You can cast a spell as simple as Message (with a known max distance) along with Find Familiar to measure distances as you document, and you have wizard researchers that have access to Wish (or clerics that talk to gods) for creating fixed, atomically precise, measuring tools.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post but this addition really weakens your argument because they have so many more resources in the setting.
Edit: oops this was meant to reply to one you your other replies
I don't think this weakens my argument at all. It is fact from 1E to 5E, the official maps of Faerun are off by quite a bit. Looking for an in-game explanation isn't unreasonable as the fact that the map distances are off is... well... fact. But don't take my word for it... Elminster's Guide to the Forgotten Realms says the following about maps:
Maps in the Realms are expensive works, being rare, easily damaged or destroyed, and more often inaccurate than not. Large, detailed, good maps are usually owned by rulers, from mayors of cities who have sewer and street maps, up to kings who own large and varied collections of old and fanciful maps from everywhere.
....
Nautical charts tend to be cruder, more inaccurate, and even more precious than maps.
Is Elturel 200 miles as the crow flies from Baldur's Gate, or is it 215 miles from Baldur's Gate? Apparently, even cartographers of the Realms cannot agree.
If someone is using a wish spell to make a better map, do you really think they'd just proceed to make that map freely available to everyone?
Also, even our maps have issues. Like projecting a sphere's surface onto a 2d image, you end up with scaling issues that make Greenland look as big as South America. You can't take a string representing 100 km or something and accurately determine the distance between points in any global map. Some do it better than others (like the projection that tries to peel the earth like an orange and then flatten that peel in 2d), but even they lose some accuracy (you can only measure accurately if you don't need to cross a tear in the "peel").
This does assume that the average mapmaker has access to the magic necessary. But fair points! I sought an in-world explanation for the sloppy mapmaking from Wizards; being off by 20 miles between editions is inexcusable, really.
There are a couple things that need addressing in this line or argument.
First is a certain assumption of rigour in logic; rigour in proof was a very nebulous thing until concrete efforts to codify rigour in the 19th century. We used to simply assume Euclid’s Elements was true because it was old, reasonably argued, and some easier results were verifiable. There’s no guarantee that Forgotten Realms wizard, who lives in a magical late renaissance analogue, would hold a scientific philosophy similar to our modern philosophy, rather than having a scientific philosophy similar to that of a renaissance scientist.
Supplementary to the first point, there is also the question of religion. Given how much the Catholic church impeded scientific progress that challenged their worldview, we could expect the many churches of the FR pantheon - many with opposed views to one another - to interfere with scientific progress.
The second point comes from the measurement units used in the rulebooks of the game. Unless we’re accepting that FR society independently came up with the imperial system or a measurement system that translates rather cleanly to the imperial system, we can assume that the measurements in the game book are approximations for the purpose of ease of use to the player. I doubt a wizard in canon is calling a distance “about 10 feet” and Ed Greenwood is just doing the common fantasy thing of “translating their language and measurements to a form understandable by earthlings.”
The third point is the Wish issue. The Wish spell is undeniably the strongest spell in the canon and requires a wizard of tremendous power to cast. Given the hubris of powerful wizards in the Forgotten Realms and fantasy in general, it’s doubtful that a wizard would use their one 9th level spell per day to either altruistically progress the knowledge of the realm or to improve mapping methods to sell a better map. If a wizard were to use their strongest spell for something as trite as monetary gain, That same knowledge gained from a Wish could be hoarded and exploited for substantial personal gain.
Finally, there’s the time commitment. You mentioned using Find Familiar to measure distances but that still requires a wizard in the field, essentially using a sentient trundle stick. Mapping requires a ridiculous level of effort from a huge team of surveyors, and is almost always backed by a government. The Sword Coast, where all the main plot happens in FR canon, is a handful of city states and frontier towns in a wild region. The Open Lords of Waterdeep would probably have hired a set of wizards to accurately calculate the acreage of farmers fields in the immediate vicinity. For something like the distance from Baldur’s Gate to Elturel, distances would be approximate, about 200 miles or 10 days travel with time to pray at every shrine.
I'll expand later when I have my coffee, but here's a quick rundown:
1st: that is because we lacked the access to universal answers, if we had access to answers earlier we'd have gotten them.
1b: Why are you presuming that the religion is a rip from Catholicism, it has similar features but is not the same. It coexists with magic. Other religions (Bhuddism and Islam) allowed the sciences to bloom.
2: I never claimed that our measuring system was the same as theirs, simply that they do have a standard that is reproducible. It could be '1 dingle = the width of a kings foot' or 'a wizard created a measuring standard with the length of 1/73rd of a fireball burn circle' for all it matters.
3: Wish was the extreme example, but an easy example (all it takes is one pissed wizard one of their 365 annual wishes to ask for 'maps to be accurate'). In a more expanded consideration, a cartographer could access flight through a spell immediately gains accurate top down views of areas, greatly increasing accuracy and removing one of the huge limitations of mapmaking (getting a vantage point that gives you a good view of an area!). On top of that, it moves at a measurable, fixed, max speed. Just imagine a mideval monk with helicopter access and think about how much more accurate they would be.
4: Find Familiar scroll is 50gp and a professional cartographer would certainly find that a reasonable investment for having a traveling companion that can accurately follow commands and has a comprehension of measuring. No wizard required.
quality post
Thanks!
Trying to reconcile the maps of BG1, BG2, BG3 and the actual map of Faerun in the books seems impossible.
I haven't tried with 1 and 2. The BG3 in-games maps are useless except as notes, but context clues, dev statements, and prior material helped quite a bit, as did paying $100 for the official mapping software.
